Nowadays, 80 degrees on the last day of June in the sweltering cesspool that composes Tennessee’s air would be considered something of a relief. However, the closer we get to three decades ago, 80 degrees was nothing short of hot as balls.

Kids ran through fire hydrants in the streets, sprinklers in their yard, or just through the path of the air conditioning unit hanging limply from a window in their living room.

In the midst of a heat induced power outage, a woman went into labor. Her husband stayed behind to tend to things around the house (AKA: frozen meat) while his mother drove the pregnant lady to the hospital. The young mother-to-be was dropped eloquently at the curb of Fort Sanders Hospital (smack dab in the thriving metropolis of Knoxville) and left to her own devices.

We women can accomplish anything when left to our own things and ways, and this woman was no different. She managed to birth a girl of (currently/will find out later) unknown weight sometime in the afternoon hours of June 30.

The girl was teeny, tiny, shy, and wanted her way. Despite her demobilizing diffidence, she proceeded to get her way through whatever means she deemed fit.

Our fair story begins on one snowy Friday in 1982. On January 29, one Amy Michelle Mundie was born to John and Becky at Henrico Doctors’ Hospital. Skipwith Road is not only awesome in name, it is the place where the first piece of this epic puzzle took independent human shape. The first breath was taken; the first cry sent shrill through the hospital walls.